


Letters From The Sky

by pixelfemme



Category: Lifeline (Video Game 2015)
Genre: I'm Sorry, talk to me about taylor, these games are really messing me up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 14:27:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9276056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixelfemme/pseuds/pixelfemme
Summary: All the things you never had time to say.Inspired by the song by Civil Twilight, which made me feel a lot of Taylor-related feelings.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Set before the events of Halfway to Infinity - spoilers for the other games, if you haven't played them yet. I've updated it to make Taylor gender-neutral!  
> The Lifeline series belongs to the people who made the Lifeline games, and Blade Runner belongs to the people who made Blade Runner. Obviously.

You're halfway through your second root beer float when you realize you shouldn't have agreed to this. It has nothing to do with the drink, of course (aside from the fact that you spilled some on Bridget's couch, but that's beside the point), and everything to do with what's happening on the TV screen in front of the two of you, lighting up the darkened basement. 

_"You look down and see a tortoise, Leon. It's crawling towards you."_

_"Tortoise?  What's that? "_

_"You know what a turtle is?"_

_"'Course."_

_"Same thing."_

_"I've never seen a turtle. But I understand what you mean."_

The film dialog continues normally, but you've stopped paying attention. You're thinking about what a certain astronaut said to you in response to an impromptu back-and-forth that had the two of you reciting that same scene verbatim:  _I'm smiling for the first time in a long while, so thanks for that._

You close your eyes, sighing. Suddenly you don't want the rest of your float; you're starting to get that tight-throated feeling that almost always ends in tears. You set your glass down on the coffee table in front of you and exhale loudly, running your hands over your face. Bridget looks at you. "You okay?"

You swallow hard, looking at her. "Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm fine."

Her brow furrows. "You don't look fine."

"It's nothing," you tell her, forcing a small smile. "This movie is just..."

"I thought you loved  _Blade Runner._ " She grabs the remote and pauses the movie.

"I do, I do," you say, trying to figure out how to explain this to her without sounding insane. "It's just, this scene is... ah, stirring some stuff up. I'm sorry, I didn't think-"

"It's them again, isn't it?" asks Bridget. You say nothing. "Oh, it totally is," she says when you don't respond. "It's that science student who never texted you back, right? Just fell off the map?"

You pinch the bridge of your nose. "Yeah."

"Dude, you've gotta get over 'em," she tells you, putting a hand on your shoulder. "I mean, look at you! If they're just going to start ignoring you, then you shouldn't be-"

"It's a bit more complicated than that," you retort. 

"Yeah, I'm sure," she says, sighing. "Except you won't tell me anything about it."

You look at her. "You would never believe me."

She rolls her eyes. "All right, whatever. Still, you should really start getting out more. Without me having to twist your arm every time."

"You're not about to try to set me up with someone from work again, are you?" you joke. 

She snorts. "You really are stubborn." There's a pause. "Okay, I'm gonna get ready for bed," she says, standing up and grabbing your float glasses from the table. "Try not to pine too much while I'm gone."

"No promises," you say, winking at her as she leaves the room, but your smile shrinks when she's gone. Exhaling, you curl into a ball and wrap your arms around your legs, resting your chin on your knees. If only she knew.

Bridget was right about getting out, you'd give her that, the reason being that ever since you'd helped Taylor get off that moon, other people with equally strange problems had started falling into your lap. A mage. A clone. A detective. And, most recently, a Green-infected woman with whom you've just parted ways. You have no idea what kind of joke the universe is playing on you, connecting you -  _you_ , arguably the least-qualified person in history - with all of these people, but you'll be damned if you're not going to do what you can to help them. Sometimes it doesn't work out - you've been worrying about Wynn almost non-stop since being disconnected from her a few days ago, and you can hardly bear to think about what might be going on with Alex - but what happened on the White Star... That's the hardest.

Despite your attempts not to, you find yourself thinking about them -  _missing_ _them -_ nearly every day. Picturing coffee shops, bad '80s movies, conversations that don't revolve around aliens trying to enslave humanity. Smiles. Embraces. Things you shouldn't want from someone you've never even met in person. 

You don't consider yourself particularly sentimental. Maybe that's why, whenever you think of Taylor, you end up wrestling with emotions you don't have a name for, trying to force them back down to where they came from. But inevitably the feelings return, and that's the most confusing part. Do you deny it because you've never actually met them? Is it because you're worried about them, wherever they are? Or is it because, on some level, you wonder if they might feel the same way about you, despite the fact that you're just some nobody who picked up a signal, who's trying unsuccessfully to be there for them even though you're separated by light years and monsters and endless trauma? Maybe it's all of those things.

"You're brooding again." Bridget's voice sounds from over your shoulder, making you jump. She's brushing her teeth and looking at you inquisitively.

"Sorry," you say. "My bad."

"You thinking about what we should watch next?" she asks through a mouthful of toothpaste.

"Thinking real hard," you joke. She chuckles, shaking her head as she heads back to the bathroom. Both of you know you aren't still thinking about movie night. You're thinking about that scene from  _Blade Runner_ and the astronaut who confuses you more than anything ever has before. But as you slowly get up and begin your nighttime routine, a simple thought makes its way into your head, and what surprises you most is that it's not directed at you, but at Taylor:

_Come back to me._

Something about this thought soothes your unsettled mind, and for the first time in weeks, you sleep soundly.

And somewhere out in the cosmos, far away from you and politics and the Pearson Corporation and bad '80s movies, a certain astronaut is thinking about you too, equally uncertain, but equally sure of one thing:

_I will._


End file.
